


Best Friends, Ex-Friends Till the End

by feverbeats



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:17:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I love what happens to your eyes when I'm doing magic."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Best Friends, Ex-Friends Till the End

  
The summer is hotter than usual, and something surprisingly like apathy is creeping into Albus' head. He's not used to doing nothing, and he can't help but think that taking care of his fucked-up family is somehow beneath him. He knows how wrong it is to think like that, but he's getting tired of having to watch what he thinks. He misses school, where everyone understood that he was something special. Here, he has to give Ariana all the attention. Aberforth is young and angry and quiet, and he won't even _talk_ to Albus. In fact, Albus gets the feeling that Aberforth would rather he were the only one taking care of their sister. Well, that would be fine by Albus.

As it is, the summer is getting sticky and oppressive already, and Albus feels claustrophobic in the little village. He's _wasting_ his potential. He's wasting everything. He already hates the other inhabitants of the village, Muggle and Wizard alike. He'd hate them less if they didn't gossip about his family.

Then, one sticky, miserable day, things change. Albus is broadsided by the change. He didn't expect anything to ever pull him out of this funk.

Gellert Grindelwald is blonde and dandyish and charming and brilliant. Albus falls in love without even realizing it. Finally, _finally_ someone who's actually his equal. The world starts moving again, and at rather too fast a pace.

*

Gellert grins. "Albus, do you ever get out?"

Albus shakes his head to clear it of the stars that fly whenever Gellert says his name. Gellert is looking around Albus' room, which is cluttered with books, thin silver instruments of indeterminate function, and papers covered in Albus' cursive scrawl.

Albus smiles. "I know it's a bit of a mess. But I've got to be home a lot, looking after my sister."

Gellert's face falls almost imperceptibly. "You have siblings?"

Albus tries to fight a surge of rising fear. He doesn't want to lose this friend before he shares everything with him. "A brother and a sister. But they aren't around much. I mean, they stay out of my room." He tries to keep the defensiveness out of his tone.

Gellert laughs, a clean, cheerful sound. "It's all right. We can just avoid them. I don't want anyone getting in our way."

Albus feels a weird thrill go through him at the look Gellert tosses almost carelessly in his direction. This is new and weird and wild, and Albus is used to being the one in control. He rather enjoys the change.  
He sits down on his bed, fingering the coverlet almost nervously. Strange. Gellert is nothing special. Then again, Albus has never known anyone else he's been so keen to open up to. He feels like he could spill his soul and Gellert would understand. He has to tread carefully, though. He doesn't want to drive Gellert away with his enthusiasm.

He's never worried about what other people think of him before. He's always been too distracted by magic and schoolwork and constant whirl of ideas circling madly around his head. Now, however, all he wants is to please Gellert, to show him that they're the same.

"I want to give you everything," Albus says wildly, not even thinking about the possible implications.

The corner of Gellert's mouth twitches into a smile. "Then do it." He sound as eager as Albus feels.

They spend the next few weeks completely absorbed in each other. Albus forgets about Aberforth and Ariana for hours at a time. He and Gellert tell each other everything and Albus, unused to being so wide-open and vulnerable, tries not to be disturbed that Gellert seems to know him better than he knows himself.

Gellert, though, has his own weaknesses. He's starved for friends in a way Albus has never been. Albus was always content to be alone with his thoughts and inventions and letters to faraway geniuses. Then again, it seems that the distance which surrounded Gellert was decidedly more unfriendly than that which surrounded Albus. Well, they have each other now, and they don't need anything else.

One day, a particularly hot one, Gellert takes to spinning spells around Albus' head while they lie on the floor, exhausted from the heat and from making new spells. Albus has put a freezing charm on the wood of the floor to cool it, but even that is wearing off. He's slightly thrown by the dizzying whirl of colored spells flying around him. This is Gellert's true magic. He's a magician in the simplest, most common sense, pulling mad tricks out of the air to impress, to stun. Albus was always too much of a purposeful loner to play an audience. He hopes, somewhat vaguely, that Gellert isn't playing him.

Gellert waves his wand lazily through the thick air, trailing blue and gold and purple stars. "Pretty," he says, "but useless."

Albus nods his agreement, but the colors spin him nonetheless. Everything about Gellert spins him.

Gellert lifts himself up on his elbow and looks at Albus. "I love what happens to your eyes when I'm doing magic."

Albus blushes, not quite sure why. There's something strange about the spells that they do, something far more intimate than sex could ever be.

But suddenly, Gellert is kissing him, his tongue slick against Albus' dry lips. Albus hasn't been kissed that many times in his life, and it's a surprise every time. Why kissing? Of all the things to think of in the middle of such amazing discoveries . . .

But Gellert's kiss isn't like anyone else's. It's fraught with all the things they've been doing, all the danger and magic and newness. Albus kisses him back, feeling almost high. Gellert runs quick fingers over Albus' shoulders and then across his hips and Albus arches up into the touch, dizzy with the power surging between them.

"I want you," Gellert breathes into Albus' ear.

Albus resists the impulse to laugh giddily. So simple, so normal, and so far beyond him. He doesn't trust himself to form a response, but the noise he finds himself making into Gellert's mouth ought to be enough.

*

It doesn't go rotten. Not yet.

Nothing even starts to go wrong for weeks.

Three weeks later, and Gellert is in Albus' room again. He has Albus' hands over his head, and he's fucking him hard. Albus' skin is slick with sweat as he rocks under Gellert's body. They're face-to-face, Albus' favorite way. He likes to look into Gellert's smiling, cherubic face when they do this. That way he can see as well as feel the raw magic that flows from his lover. It's not that he's got a thing for power, it's that he's got a thing for Gellert.

Albus gasps out one shaky breath after another, feeling the sheets cling to him in the heat. Gellert is actually laughing as he moves in the dark, and Albus shakes his head. Gellert has a certain bright immaturity which comes out at the worst times. It only makes the whole thing madder.

Albus doesn't mind feeling a little bit intoxicated _all the time_. These last few weeks have been a even bigger blur than before, flying past in a flurry of naked limbs and high, crazy magic. Gellert is bending over him to whisper in his ear now, about the Hallows and other things Albus isn't even sure of.

"Gellert, _please_," he says, not because Gellert likes to hear him beg, but because he likes to hear himself say it, in a sort of detached and surprised way.

Gellert moans softly, and his body stiffens.

They hang for a moment, Albus and Gellert and the idea of the Hallows. Then Gellert is coming and so is Albus and he's blind for a moment, his head filled with sparks behind his eyes, maybe from the sex and maybe from the magic.

"Albus," Gellert whispers after a moment.

Albus squeezes Gellert's arm, still reorienting himself in the dark. "Yes?"

"Let's go outside. It's too hot in here."

Albus shrugs his clothes back on, fumbling a bit. Gellert's been a bit off all day, even to the extent of being quiet and moody. It's so unlike him that Albus can't help but worry. What if has gone _wrong_ with the perfect setup they have?

He follows Gellert out into the little garden behind the house. The air is ridiculously sweet with the scent of flowers, and Albus can see them in the moonlight, purple and white and orange. He used to care about things like that.

Gellert is pacing the length of the little rock path which runs through the middle of the garden, fiddling with his wand. Black sparks fly from it, little holes of nothingness in the moon-bright air.

"Gellert," Albus says, hearing an unexpected warning in his own voice.  
"I don't know, all right?" Gellert says, stopping partway up the path. His eyes are too bright to be dangerous, but Albus feels a shock of fear nonetheless. "They talk about us, in the village," Gellert says finally. "They say we're freaks. Perverts."

Albus sighs. He doesn't want to hear what he already knows. Gellert, however, may actually mind being talked about. "I'm sorry," Albus offers.

"They hate your family," Gellert says somewhat desperately. "Your wild little brother and your sister. There's something . . . _odd_ about her."

Albus is tempted to suggest that this is obvious, but he stops himself. He tries to be fair to Ariana. He's just not very good at it. Gellert must have caught his expression, because he says, "Oh, I mean odder than that. I always feel like something bad is going to happen when she's about."

Albus turns away. He won't admit to feeling the same way. "I'm sorry," he says again, unable to say anything else. He's sorry he can't be free to travel the world with Gellert. He's sorry his family is completely broken. He's sorry he isn't standing up for them and he's sorry he can't be rid of them completely.

Gellert is still vibrating with tension. "She's mad, you know."  
Albus wonders for a second if Gellert is testing him, seeing how hard he can push before Albus pushes back, seeing whose side Albus is really on. He's spared further thought, however, by the appearance of Aberforth.

Aberforth, who bursts from the house to stand before them, teenage and skinny and unsure. "I heard you," he says softly, almost as if he's afraid. The moonlight reflects off his face at strange angles and he looks so _young_. "I heard you talking about her. Just like I heard you upstairs earlier. You can't do this to us."

Albus isn't sure which of them he's talking to, but it doesn't really matter. "Stop," he says.

Aberforth opens his mouth. He almost doesn't stop, Albus can see it. He can see the indecision cross his brother's worried face, and he doesn't know what he'll do if Aberforth challenges him.

But he doesn't. He shuts his mouth and stands in the path for a moment, as though he's waiting for something to happen. When nothing does, he walks quickly back to the house and shuts the door. He doesn't even slam it.

Albus turns to Gellert, who is standing unmoving in the path.  
"I'm sorry too, Albus," he says.

And Albus knows that they've been saved from disaster, at least for now.

*

As the weeks wear on, Albus manages to drive the worry out of his mind. It's replaced by something much more dangerous and wide. He suspects that it might be obsession, but he can't find any reason why that would be a bad thing.

_You used to mean the world to me_ he writes to Elphias Doge, _but now the world is changing_.

Albus is changing too.

Gellert teaches him strange new kinds of magic, kinds which break him and put him back together and turn him on and off and into something entirely new. He teaches Gellert what books can do, and Gellert sneers, and then bows his head. When they are too elated with a new discovery to continue, they suck each other off on the bed with the hot summer breeze pushing its way in through the window.

At night, Albus lies awake, thinking of Gellert's body and of the Hallows.


End file.
